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Yesterday George Will devoted his column to explaining to pro-choice Californians why they should vote for Rudy Giuliani. He concedes the so-called "pro-choice" Giuliani won't actually govern in the name of reproductive rights -- that he'll appoint anti-choice justices to the Supreme Court who may very well overturn Roe. But Californians shouldn't be concerned, Will argues, because after all, California is a socially liberal state and the legislature there will protect a woman's right to choose:
So, the overturning of Roe might not result from a Republican president's alteration of the court's balance. But suppose it did. Again, so what? Many, perhaps most, Americans, foggy about the workings of their government, think that overturning Roe would make abortion, one of the nation's most common surgical procedures, illegal everywhere. All it actually would do is restore abortion as a practice subject to state regulation. But because Californians are content with current abortion law, their legislature probably would adopt it in state law. It is not irrational for voters to care deeply about a candidate's stance regarding abortion because that stance is accurately considered an important signifier of the candidate's sensibilities and sympathies, and of his or her notion of sound constitutional reasoning. But regarding abortion itself, what a candidate thinks about abortion rights is not especially important.There's so much wrong with this logic. First, is it inconceivable that while women in California and New York understand their own states are likely to protect existing abortion rights, they also believe strongly that other women, in Mississippi and South Dakota and Nebraska, deserve the same freedom? Secondly, Will's argument proceeds from the spurious assumption that in "liberal" states, access to abortion is already universal and protected by the law. In fact, low-income women who rely upon Medicaid for health care are barred by the federal government from using their benefits to access abortion. So the reproductive health priorities of the next president are crucially important not only to protecting choice in individual states, but to expanding it nationwide. Let's also not forget that the president makes appointments that affect women's sexual health, to the Office of Family Planning, the FDA, and the like. George W. Bush needlessly politicized debates over the morning-after pill and sex-ed by appointing officials who were willing to join him in ignoring near-univeral recommendations from the medical and educational communities. As a result, Plan B was kept behind the counter for years longer than necessary, and our federal government wastes hundreds of millions of dollars on abstinence-only education. A candidate's ideology on abortion is an excellent predictor of his or her ideology on these closely related matters.George Will asks, "So what?" if we elect an anti-choice president. Earth to George: Women will suffer! And the poorer and more vulnerable they are, the more they'll be adversely affected.--Dana Goldstein
